Jesse Saunders #1, Blueberries to Potatoes: Farming in Maine

The Blueberries to Potatoes: Farming in Maine exhibit is displayed by the Maine Memory Network, a digital museum operated by the Maine Historical Society. The Maine Memory Network collects submissions of digitized artifacts (in this case photographs, advertisements and publication covers) and assembles them into exhibits for the web. The Blueberries to Potatoes photographs were uploaded from libraries, archives, and historical societies across the state, and formed into this artificial collection, with the source repositories retaining the original materials. The Memory Network also provides links to vendors which sell prints/reproductions of the materials included in the exhibits.

Selection Decisions: It is unclear how exhibit selection decisions are made, whether all materials submitted to the Maine Historical Society on a topic are posted, or if there is any separation of wheat from chaff which is done in order to display only the materials of higher quality or greater interest. Given that the exhibit has only 30 images, it is surely not a large percentage of materials related to Maine Farming, yet it is unclear how many of these have been digitized and uploaded by the image-holding repositories.

Metadata: The information page on each photograph includes metadata, to the point it is known/available. For many images in the collection, the town or farm may be known, but often dates are approximated and names are unknown. In order to increase reliable metadata regarding the images, links are provided on each image's page which allows people to contact the Memory Network if they know any further information on the image. Metadata is also given regarding the repository holding the original materials, along with their local call/item number to (hopefully) allow for easy retrieval on-site.

Object Characteristics: For each image, a mid-sized jpeg is displayed on the it's information page, with links to an enlarged version and a zoom-able version of the image. Images which are heavily text based generally include transcriptions of the text contained in the image, and in some cases transcriptions of whole documents. The exhibit itself offers multiple methods for navigation, a slide show which leads the user through the images one page at a time, and a list view which offers thumbnails and brief information on each image while listing all images in one page. Navigation could be made easier for the user who simply wants to scroll through the images, particularly the larger versions. Frequent users of the site an account can be established which allows a personal "album" to be assembled from materials across exhibits.

Intended Audience: The intended audience for the Maine Memory Network and the Blueberries to Potatoes exhibit appears to be residents of the state who are interested in state history and culture. As many of the artifacts are from the early/mid 20th century, now would be the opportune time for the Maine Memory Network to heavily solicit input from Maine residents who were living in these communities in order to gain additional metadata, insight on the images, and perhaps collect more materials, before these residents pass away.